Works Cited: “cornet, n.1” OED Online. (2022). Oxford University Press. (https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/41650?rskey=PQY2v4&result=1&isAdvanced=false#eid) “pontoon, n.1” OED Online. (2022). Oxford University Press. (https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/147687?rskey=cSJfwy&result=1#eid) “The Publication Question.” Emily Dickinson Museum, The Emily Dickinson Museum, (https://www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org/emily-dickinson/poetry/the-poet-at-work/the-publication-question/.)

What would her value be without artistic talent?

Stun can mean to amaze but also to render motionless. This reflects the issue at the heart of the poem: to give up art would be to surrender a source of agency for the speaker.

Emily Dickinson often struggled with the concept of herself as an artist, specifically pertaining to publication. One can also see this in "I'm Nobody! Who are you?."

Repetition of earlier line, is she really one though or is she one of many as an audience member?

Hyperbolic nature of the last line conveys a kind of almost playful exasperation at this dilemma she knows the answer to.

Privilege goes back to the sense of high society as audience members, but also reflects the key message of the poem. The speaker feels conflicted about the privilege of being freed from creative frustrations versus surrendering the agency that comes with creativity.

Awe-filled but also awful, negative

Does an audience member have license? It's a kind of decision to decide not to create. Perhaps encourages the reader to reflect on the comparison between poetic license and the right of a viewer to simply admire.

Sandwiches impotent, a powerlessness, in the middle of enamored and content. The similar sounds make it so the reader may not even notice among the flow of the words.

an ear is an inherent part of the human body, no distinctive quality. While the fingers of the artist move, an ear awaits to listen.

More refined (goes back to socialite) but also just fine, nothing particularly outstanding.

OED: "a temporary floating bridge supported by a number of boats, hollow metal cylinders, or other floats."

If a pier to her pontoon, perhaps suggests it provides her ground or material that enables her to float.

While she is lifted, "ether" and "balloon" suggest that maybe while weightless, this can also feel hollow?

traveling upward like the musical notes of the Cornet

"Raised," "softly," and the dashes in "-- out, and easy, on--" gives the line a relaxed feeling, yet the use of the passive raised hints at the absence of agency in an audience member maybe.

OED: A wind instrument made from or resembling a horn; a horn

The adjectives "sweet" and "sumptuous" serve as contrasts to the emotions they describe, "torment" and "despair." Perhaps this suggests the removal of audiences from the actual emotional experiences of the audience. While they can experience the emotions artificially or secondhand, the artist must actually undergo the torment.

The artist's rare talent that seems not of this world. Perhaps hinting at a kind of intimacy between the artist and the audience.

kind of sounds like a socialite or upper class person taking pleasure in a gallery opening. The dashes draw out the line like one is reveling in looking at a painting and the alliteration of dwell delicious grants it a very luscious, drawn out quality.

how the unique work of artists can seem impossibly good to audiences

Works Cited:

“stain, n.” OED Online. (2022). Oxford University Press. (https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/188731?rskey=0aOOxZ&result=1&isAdvanced=false#eid.) “Emily Dickinson and the Church.” Emily Dickinson Museum, The Emily Dickinson Museum.(https://www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org/emily-dickinson/biography/special-topics/emily-dickinson-and-the-church/#:~:text=Brought%20up%20in%20a%20Calvinist,denomination%20of%20early%20New%20England.) Wills, Kendra, and Rena Martin. “Celebrating the History of the Strawberry.” MSU Extension, Michigan State University, 21 Jan. 2022,(https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/celebrating_the_history_of_the_strawberry.) Lochridge, Dorothy L. A Study in the Sexuality of Emily Dickinson, the Spider and the Flower: Manifest Homosexuality and Its Significance to Critical Comprehension of the Poetry and the Poet, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, NC Docks, 1970,(http://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncg/listing.aspx?id=28132#:~:text=Lack%20of%20adequate%20emotional%20relationship,developing%20emotional%20patterns%20may%20be.)

The dash gives a pause that makes it seem as though the speaker is actually reflecting or is having a conversation. It also helps emphasize the barrier present throughout the poem.

In a 1970 thesis, Dorothy Lynn Lochridge aims to support Rebecca Patterson's claim that many of Emily Dickinson's love poems were about Kate Anthon. Within the thesis, Lochridge mentions "'Heaven'--Is What I Cannot Reach!," and "Not probable--The barest Chance" as poems with homosexual significance. She shows how both poems examine the barriers presented to queer people in their pursuit of love and desire. This helps support a queer reading of "Over the fence" by providing evidence that Emily Dickinson was queer and that she explores the challenges of queer relationships and homosexual love at this time in her works, especially in the form of forbidden love and barriers.

This reminds me of the cottagecore aesthetic at the beginning of the pandemic

Tone of bravado. She could be with women if she tried.

Strawberries is isolated by the dash and helps emphasize the image. Historically, strawberries have been associated with Venus, the goddess of love, desire, and fertility. This association with Venus gives strawberries a connotation of female desire and sexuality. Naming strawberries specifically and isolating the image to further emphasize them suggests that women are the recipients of the speaker's desire. The use of fruit also highlights the barrier of the fence by giving it the quality of the forbidden fruit, such as that in the garden of Eden.

This is underlined in the original written version, emphasizing that the poem still ends on a conditional and a barrier. The dashes before and after climb help convey that the barrier is still present by breaking up the line and emphasizing the ending conditional.

By saying that God would climb if he could, she is implying that there's nothing wrong about climbing over the metaphorical fence.

Radically questions God's gender by using "if" and also highlights the difference in sexual freedom for boys versus girls, which is further exacerbated by her sexuality.

Once again reinforcing that tongue in cheek tone

Reinforces playful tone as the threat of Hell would be seen as serious, especially since Dickinson was raised in a Calvinist household. She downplays the threat of eternal damnation in the eyes of religion by referring to it as a scolding, which takes away a significant amount of its power.

Reflects Dickinson's complicated relationship with her religion as evidenced in her other poems

"Stained my apron" in tandem with the reference to God's scolding in the following line highlights how this desire would create a sort of stain on her personhood in the eyes of God. In religious context, the stain could be a sexual stain. Historically in literature stains have been used to communicate "a morally defiling effect on the character or conscience; a grave blemish on a person's reputation; a mark of infamy or disgrace, a stigma."

The innocent, simplistic nature of this line helps convey that there is nothing deviant or hyper-sexual about the speaker's homosexual desire. "Nice" creates a sense of universality; everyone can appreciate berries. The exclamation point creates a sense of joy that establishes an almost tongue in cheek tone.

"commenced" better emphasizes to the reader that important action is about to begin with the clock striking midnight

"of" rather than "in" the orchestra makes the orchestra seem less separated from the rest of the party-goers and more involved in the center of the action

The addition of there were cards gives the reader greater insight into how these individuals can only deal with chance or risk in a controlled environment. While outside there is real danger, their secluded wealth allows them to to turn chance into a game.

This also draws upon the Gothic use of mirror images

She moves like a ghost, which reinforces the Gothic nature of the story, while also emphasizing how her presence or lack thereof haunts the narrator and Rodrick Usher throughout the story. Even when she's not visible, she's never absent from the story

The narrator seems to compare the experience to drugs or alcohol a few times throughout the story, perhaps a subtle hint he himself struggles with addiction.

Emphasizes the insular nature of the family and how that contributes to their decay

I think the distorted reflection of the house in the lake draws upon the common use of mirrors as a Gothic trope.

I think Poe employs pathetic fallacy a lot throughout his works. The wrath of the storm really struck me as reflecting the wrath of the sister, and perhaps of the house as well.